Why, if lawyers are supposed to be good communicators, are the majority of LAWPRO claims related to communication issues? In 2014, for example, the broad category of communications accounted for about almost a third of claims reported and claims costs. In the article “Let’s Get Talking: A Look at Communications Breakdowns“, from LAWPRO Magazine we asked some lawyers to give their opinions on how lawyer-client communications can break down. This excerpt deals with lawyers giving clients the impression they don’t really care:

How can lawyers understand what clients truly want if they don’t listen? And how can lawyers . . . [more]

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the Public Review of LegalDocML’s Akoma Ntoso v1.0. If you’re interested in legal XML and want to learn more about the Akoma Ntoso XML standard there are a couple of courses being offered at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia this summer.

The first is the Basic Course offering an, “introduction to Akoma Ntoso XML standard and to basic XML technologies for drafting and managing standard-compliant legislative and legal documents.” The second part, an Advanced Course, will provide, “in-depth analysis of the higher levels of Semantic Web technologies . . . [more]

A 7 year battle over a day of paid personal leave has finally reached a conclusion.

The dispute centred around the interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement governing a unionized employee of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The employee, during the span of one fiscal year, moved from one position within the Agency to another. Each position was in a different bargaining unit with its own collective agreement. Each collective agreement entitled workers to one paid personal day per fiscal year. The employee took a personal day under each agreement (in the same year). The Agency refused to . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from sixty recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. The Stream 2. Administrative Law Matters3. Excess Copyright 4. Law & Style 5. Clio Blog

The Stream
Asked & Answered: Can I text in the Courtroom?

Texting is a great way to communicate. It’s fast and, with an ever-growing number of emoticons to choose from, it’s fun too! . . . [more]

We all covet the latest and greatest of technology, not to mention possessing the fastest computer. One way to increase the speed of your computer is to use a solid state drive (SSD) instead of a mechanical one. Essentially, SSDs are flash memory devices that appear as a hard disk to the computer. It is very fast to write and read from memory as opposed to accessing data from the rotating platters of a mechanical disk drive. Solid state drives are three to four times faster than their mechanical counterparts when writing or reading large files. Sound good? Then you’ll . . . [more]

Lawyers have always needed to stay current with developments and changes in our field. The proliferation of information online has changed this responsibility, and creates new challenges as well as new opportunities.

In 1998, David Blunkett, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, stated in a green paper called The Learning Age,

We are in a new age – an age of information and global competition. Familiar certainties and old ways of doing things are disappearing. The types of jobs we do have are changed as have the industries in which we work and the skills they need.

At

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : La directive donnée par le juge à propos du témoignage d’un témoin taré était insuffisante, compte tenu des circonstances particulières de l’affaire et de la nature de la preuve avancée par la poursuite; par conséquent, l’accusé devra subir un nouveau procès pour meurtre au second degré.

Intitulé . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern:
Civil Rights – Administrative Law – Real Property – Statutes

British Columbia Teachers’ Federation v. British Columbia 2015 BCCA 184
Civil Rights
Summary: In 2002, the Province of British Columbia enacted legislation that voided hundreds of terms of the teachers’ collective agreement. The legislation also prohibited collective bargaining on issues of class size and . . . [more]

One Sunday each month OnPoint Legal Research provides Slaw with an extended summary of, and counsel’s commentary on, an important case from the British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario court of appeal.

BDO Canada Limited v Dorais, 2015 ABCA 137

Areas of Law: Bankruptcy; Trustees; Prosecution by trustee

~ Trustees in bankruptcy may pursue claims on behalf of the bankrupt estate, including those brought by creditors that accrue to the benefit of all creditors, but may not pursue the claims of individual creditors that benefit them individually.~

BACKGROUND: The deceased Michel Dorais and a number of companies previously controlled by him . . . [more]

For the next while the Friday Fillip will be a chapter in a serialized crime novel, interrupted occasionally by a reference you might like to follow up. Both this chapter of the book and the whole story up to this point can be had as PDF files. You may also subscribe to have chapters delivered to you by email.

MEASURING LIFE
 
Chapter 13
Worthy Primo

Are you working in a firm that has gone through a merger, or been rebranded through a takeover? Have you had occasion to look on the web and try to locate the old firm by name or by its URL? In most cases if you do this, you will no longer find the websites which once displayed the proud information of the firm, its partners and its achievements.

Why has this happened? In most instances when a firm is merged or subsumed with another, or becomes part of a new network, it is thought to be bad for client relations . . . [more]

An Ontario court has compelled an employer to produce an email message between HR staff and counsel in the wrongful dismissal case of Jacobson v Atlas Copco Canada Inc. The Superior Court of Justice found the employer failed to show that the message involved seeking or giving legal advice; thus it could not be protected by solicitor-client privilege. . . . [more]